Flying Into Fatal Lightning
by The Unoriginal Emo
Summary: After a soaring Asuka Kazama is nearly struck down by fatal lightning, she loses her will to fight and to fly. It is only after a chance encounter in the most unlikely of places that she learns to heal her broken wings. Post-Tekken 5 Pre-Tekken 6
1. An Introduction

Working for G-Corp could be a real bitch at times.

While Asuka was grateful to have the opportunity to work for them and appreciated all the company had done for her, as she pulled yet another all-nighter filing stacks of paperwork for the R&D department, setting it ablaze was being seriously pondered.

Again.

The air was stale, cold, and depressing inside and the rainy, muggy summer sky outside looked even less inviting. And that said a lot. Fluorescent lights seemed to be taunting her with their incessant flickering. The room was empty save for the desks on each side of the room. Three years ago, when Asuka was recruited for Research and Development, she imagined working in a lavish and eccentric building filled with quirky and ingenious products. Everything bright and vivid and awe inspiring.

And yet, here she was. In a building indistinguishable from the average rundown warehouse. Big, bulky, with brick walls poorly covered with chipped white paint. The inside barely looked any better. Cold, hard vinyl floors that murdered her feet. Dirty white walls in desperate need of repainting greeted her at every corner she turned. Every office had office had dark steel desks on each side of the room. The most luxurious thing about the place was its cushioned chairs. Only the privileged, or the privileged's lackeys like her, were lucky enough to be placed into rooms with windows. When she arrived at her first day at work, she seriously thought she had been given the wrong address by mistake.

A popular theory amongst the newer employees is that the barrenness helps inspire workers to crank out the impressive number of patented products. An even more popular, and logical, theory amongst the veteran workers is that Rijuchi Sukotochi was just one cheap motherfucker. Having never met the the G-Corp CEO, she would just have to at take their word for it and curse him all the same. With a building as welcoming as this one, it's no wonder the employees were walking, talking balls of sunshine.

Her sadistic coworkers had long since departed for comfort their familiar warm beds, giving her half-apologetic, half-sympathetic, completely insincere smiles on the way out. And considering most of them contributed to the plenitude of paperwork on her desk, all she could maintain was a strained smile. The more miserable Asuka looked, the more paperwork Asuka got. She surmised that most of it was busy work that could have easily been done by the engineers within a few minutes. Dropping it on her desk could mean it would take almost half an hour per file. The former fighter would have to hunt down the necessary paperwork and files in offices that were sure to be locked, meaning she would then have to hunt down custodians all the way across the building. Then she would have to read over files and files and files of experiments, hypotheses, patents, etc. to well verse herself in what to file for whom. Sometimes the brunette would get lucky and find a file on project she had been observing, shortening her thirty-minute-per-file rate down to five. Her three years on the grind had gotten her used to doing this unnecessary busywork fast and efficiently, but that didn't mean she liked it.

But she never complained. The young woman was fortunate to have been given the opportunity and refused to sabotage it.

Now that she had graduated from college , her internship with the corporation was winding down. In two weeks, Asuka was to meet with the CEO, Mr. Sukotochi himself, to discuss her future with the company. There was a high chance that Asuka was going to be offered a position with Research and Development in exchange for covering her graduate school tuition. However, that didn't mean she wanted to take it. She was sick of the building, sick of the people, sick of the work. Asuka no doubt loved engineering, but quantum physics and computer science were where her heart was. Never once in her life did she aspire to be an engineer. In fact, the only reason she studied engineering in college in the first place was that it was part of G-Corp's terms of her scholarship.

In hindsight, Asuka definitely should have taken the other plentiful other scholarships she had been offered, but she was stubborn and liked a challenge. And challenging it was. In order for G-Corp to cover her tuition, she had intern at the Research and Development field as well as major in Engineering. An amazing opportunity. An amazing opportunity which lead to her trying to balance three majors with cruel corporate office work that she learned very little from. Sleep became a fond memory of hers while a severe coffee dependency asserted itself as top priority in her life. What she called temporary insanity, others called cockiness of dangerous proportions. While Asuka wasn't a genius, officially at least, she was indisputably brilliant. She graduated high school a year early and possibly could have graduated earlier if she hadn't wasted her time on martial arts. While she loved the challenge, she missed out on many opportunities to connect with others in her age bracket. Most of Asuka's childhood and early adolescence was spent in vain trying to get her father recognition for any of the plethora of endeavors, primarily martial arts, Asuka took up to please him.

How many times had she work throughout the night and into the morning trying to perfect a technique?

To prove herself to the fellow students at the dojo?

After her father's dojo had been crashed and the events of the Fifth Iron Fist , Asuka spent more of her time with her nose in the books. Trying to find her path, the way she had always wanted to, she had shed the parts of herself she yearned to lose for so long. The Asuka at the age of twenty-one was someone completely different from the Asuka at the age of fifteen. She had thrown away her pseudo-bravado and learned to accept herself as she was.

She'd never learned to heal her broken parts, however. Maybe she could with time. But for now, she focus on the work.

The buzzing of the lights overhead and the routine sounds of custodians making the rounds had worked to send the young woman into a trance. Asuka had completely missed the dark truck pulling into the dark parking lot below. The clock ticked on and the stack of files on her desk gradually wound down to one.

All the while, not noticing the footsteps getting louder down the hall. It was nearing midnight and her internal clock reminded her to go home and rest for school tomorrow. It took several seconds to remember that she had already graduated.

Creatures of habit.

Regardless, Asuka promised was grateful to only have to complete one more file. Soon she could go home to her lonely bed and restart the cycle again. She just had to look everything over to make sure no mistakes were made. Asuka knew all too well how someone's simple mistake could ruin another person's life. But that was another story.

As Asuka was finally finishing up the last file, light sprang into the dimly lit room, directly into her eyes and startled the brunette out of her trance. Rampant footsteps filled the room like a grenade. Temporarily blinded, all she could make out was black figures coming towards her in bright light. Voices boomed across the room as Asuka was jerked by the collar of her shirt. Disorientated, Asuka little chance to react before she felt herself being shoved and a loud cracking sound echoing in the room.

The world instantly went black.

* * *

Rijiuchi Sukotochi used to be a man with an infallible spirit.

Thirty years ago, he founded an energy efficient company in honor of his mother, as she had humbly brought him up in a small village far from the mainland. He remembered the birds most, how he understood them. They had all the freedom in the world and yet, always came back to where home was.

He never got the chance to.

While he had been away at college,his entire village, and everyone in it, had been burned to the ground. A European oil company synonymous with corruption had recently strict a deal to begin drilling in the village, bringing revenue to people who desperately need it, being rural in a growing industrial world. Greed had overcome the village leaders, who had heartlessly turned a blind eye to the vanishing landscape around them. It had been two months into drilling and two days before Sukotochi's graduation, his mother was due to start traveling to see him.

An act of God, they called it. A explosion as a result of corporate greed. Sukotochi didn't necessarily disagree. No one paid for the negligence and it was soon swept away by time. It was that day, when he volunteered to help search for survivors, when he had to drag out the remains of the people that raised him, that Sukotochi swore he would change the industry for the better. It was that day the G-Corporation was founded.

He rose his small pro-environment business to a worldwide corporation in the midst of the worst energy crisis of the century. And he was proud of it. _The G-Corporation,_ he called it. _The Good Corporation._ Every employee, hand-picked by Sukotochi himself, lived by was "Clean Air, Clean Hands". There was never to be any dirty dealings: no bribe money, no trail of bodies, no secrets from the public.

It didn't last long and he regrets it to this very day.

It was one act of vengeance, one petty act of retaliation brought that man back into his business. That man taught him the true meaning of hostile takeover. That man and his ruthless companion. It had been four years but the blood of his long standing partners and colleagues still permeated his nose. The sight of their mangled corpses still haunted his dreams. Two set of eyes, three different colors, still had him cautious of every move he made.

He learned to stop asking questions. He didn't question the sharp increase in money spent on developing military-grade weapons, the drastic amount of new recruits in the G-Force. It wasn't his place to.

He was a puppet, nothing more. That was the only reason he was kept alive

Every decision made by him had to be reported to the man upstairs, every employee he hired had to receive that man's final stamp of approval. Sukotochi was so lost in his thoughts that he never noticed his assistant barge into his office. He was about to reprimand her for not knocking when he noticed her flustered expression.

"Sir." She said, "We have a problem."

* * *

 _ **Thank you so much for reading the first chapter of Flying into Fatal Lightning. This chapter was a little vague, I know. Run on sentences are a huge issue for me and I tried to minimize it in the story.**_

 _ **For all of you confused readers:**_

 _ **There are a lot, and I mean a lot, of issues with canonical Tekken's storyline. I could write a book on it. But the thing that no one seems to mention is the fact that Tekken 4-Tekken 6, and possibly 7, all occur within the same year. Tekken 4 and Tekken 5? Maybe you could pull that off. Tekken 6?**_

 _ **I call bullshit.**_

 _ **As badass as Jin Kazama is, I highly doubt he is able to win TWO Iron Fist Tournaments, take over one of the most ruthless organizations in the world (With very little known training on how to RUN a business), recruit an army large enough to take over the would (And how did Lars manage to rally the support to start and successfully lead a coup?), bankrupt several business, and try to pull a Hitler on the ENTIRE World all within the course of 365 days.**_

 _ **But Lord Troll Harada says it is, and so it shall be.**_

 _ **For the sake of plot, I am putting a nice time gap between Tekken 5 and Tekken 6. A five year time gap to be specific. And that will probably be the biggest difference between Flying into Fatal Lightning and Tekken. This story is NOT meant to be AU. This story IS meant to take place between Post-Tekken 5 all the way to the end of Scenario Campaign with very little alterations to the main storyline and a similar, if not the same, ending. I want to explain several things in FIFL that are merely brushed upon or utterly ignored in the main plot, primarily:**_

 ** _*Why is Jin such an ass?_**

 ** _*Kazuya's role from behind the scenes of G-Corp_**

 ** _*Lee's role in all this nonsense._**

 ** _*Seriously, why is Jin such an ass?_**

 ** _*Why are we being trolled with Asuka's power?_**

 ** _*Why is Harada such a troll?_**

 _ **There is a lot of foreshadowing in this chapter that I plan on getting to. Anyway, thank you for reading this and I would love to hear your thoughts, questions, complaints.**_


	2. Hostile Working Conditions

_It was the loud piercing noise that woke her up that night._

 _The tired little girl sleepily rubbed her eyes as she groggily sat up in bed. Within minutes, bright flashing red lights flooded her room. Asuka Kazama had been woken up by the sounds of police cars all of her little life, her bedroom being positioned by the street corner made it inevitable, but she had never been good at toning them out. Her first instinct was to run to just lie down and ignore it, however, once she was fully awake and aware of her surroundings, she noticed that something was different. It sounded like multiple sirens, all out of sync. The noise did not pass the way it normally did, the siren lights stayed positioned by her room, illuminating her things in constantly moving red light._

 _Something was definitely off. Even the five-year old could tell._

 _But most importantly,_ she _felt off. Like she was missing something. Something she had always had. It felt like waking up bald._

 _Asuka decided to peak out the window directly across from her window. She got out of bed, with each step swaying slightly from her exhaustion, and quietly moved to proceed in her peaking._

 _Her only obstacle?_

 _The armoire._

 _Her armoire was built tall and wide. Not completely covering the sides of but only providing a small slither that she couldn't see through. She tiptoed over to her desk by the bed and slowly pulled her desk chair. Asuka made sure to be quiet so she wouldn't wake up Mama and Papa. Last time she got caught redecorating, she had spent over an hour in timeout. She left her desk chair in front of her armoire. Standing on the chair still didn't make her tall enough to climb on to the Armoire and see out the window behind it._

Time for a new approach _, the little girl thought._

 _Ten stacked kiddie science books and two clumsy falls later, Asuka had finally climbed on top of her armoire, police sirens still going strong. While carefully balancing on the oak, the little girl peered out her window and saw three police cars lined up against her house and an ambulance. Within a few seconds of her looking out, one of the police cars drove away, followed quickly by another police car. Someone, it was too dark to tell who, was being loaded up into the ambulance before it too quickly sped off._

 _All that was left was that one cop car. Suddenly, the five-year old didn't feel safe anymore_

 _Through the flashing red lights, Asuka say a man curled up on the grass and a police officer approaching him. The cop tried to pull at the man but he just would move. Asuka had seen that before, a man resisting arrest. After a few minutes of the cop pulling, Asuka fearing the cop would shot the bad guy, the police officer kneeled down and put his hand on the back of the fallen man. Asuka had seen officers do that too. Papa said only the really nice ones did it, though._

Papa _._

Maybe he could explain what was going on _, Asuka mused._

 _In her excitement to get down, Asuka forgot that she was standing on a nearly six-foot tall armoire and went flying off of it. She landed feet first and a loud snap sounded from below her._

 _Her foot hurt, a lot. So much so, she started to cry._

 _Sobbing, the injured child limped all the way to her parents' room, interest on the events outside long forgotten. All she knew was that she was injured and that she wanted Mama to make her feel better. Maybe she would get lucky and they would her sleep with them._

 _After knocking on the door several times, because Mama had always told her to knock before entering, Asuka peeked into her parents' bed room. She slowly climbed onto the bed, expecting two warm lumpy bodies to be there to comfort her, only to find an empty bed. Scared, Asuka began to limp throughout the house._

 _"Mama!" She called out. "Papa!"_

 _No answer._

 _Restless, hurt and scared, the cries to her parents got louder and louder. She even went outside to the garden, and the family dojo._

 _No sign of Mama or Papa._

 _In her desperation, Asuka wandered to the front of her house where the police officer and bent over man were still in the same position. Mama once told her that police officers were supposed to help people. Mama told her so it had to be true. This officer would help her find her Mama and Papa._

 _She just knew it._

 _Asuka side-stepped the collapsed man and tugged at the police officer's pants. He jumped, obviously not knowing the little girl had been there. That happened to her a lot, Mama would call her the little ghost because she was always sneaking up on and scaring people. Asuka kept tugging until the officer kneeled down again._

 _"I can't find my Mama or Papa; will you help me find them?" The little girl asked. The man hunched over snapped his head up at her and, before she what was going on, had her in a tight in embrace. She started to squirm away, her father told her to always stay away from strange men, when the man spoke._

 _"Oh, my little girl." The man cried, it was her father. Asuka stopped squirming and held onto him like a life line. She cried harder from relief, and so did Papa._

 _It was only two days later that she would learn that they were crying for completely different reasons._

* * *

Sukotochi wished the ground would swallow him whole.

With each step, his feet felt like lead. After being debriefed on the hostage situation at G-Corp's main R&D, he told his chief security official to hold on making any decisions. He sputtered in disbelief at Sukotochi's flippant answer but Sukotochi would hear none of it. He couldn't give an order yet.

That man would have his head if he made any decision without informing him prior.

Behind Sukotochi's office, there was a private hallway that few people knew about. At the end of that private hallway was a private elevator that that lead to a room on one of the higher floors in the tower.

Every time Sukotochi made the trip, he couldn't help but wonder if he would come back. This time was no different

The elevator ride only lasted 43 seconds and counting however, it felt like years. It had been dubbed the Ride of Shame by him and all the other unlucky bastards unfortunate enough to end up on it.

All the ones that came back, at least.

The elevators slowly opened to a dimly lit room. The windows were open, but it being the middle of the night did nothing to help. Sukotochi didn't care much about that anyway.

He was more focused on the ominous man clad in purple directly in front of him.

"Enter." Like a good soldier, he obeyed. Standing as straight as he possibly could, Sukotochi marched over to the desk while trying to give off a false air of confidence. His life might have been depending on it.

After all, it was the whimpering ones that never came back.

He knew never to look into his eyes, always look at his hair. In his general direction, so not to royally piss him of, but not directly at him. Not for fear of what Mr. Mishima would do, for fear that he would lose all his resolve and beg for mercy at eyes that would surely offer none.

The eyes that had killed most of those close to him.

"Speak."

"Mr. Mishima, sir, we have a problem. A group of nine militants has infiltrated our Research and Development building in the city and is currently holding twelve of our personnel hostage." Sukotochi tried to say in as formal a manner as possible.

"What are the demands." Mr. Mishima almost sounded bored at this news. It worked to reaffirm the sense of fear that Sukotochi felt within every fiber of his being.

"The Roxnal research," Sukotochi felt Mr. Mishima's eyes narrow at him but he still refused to look at him directly. "They say that they will kill a hostage for every hour we don't give it to them." He could practically hear his own blood rushing.

"Time."

"Seven hours until all the hostages are dead, sir."

"They're with the Zaibatsu" It was a question that was in no way a question. Nothing was ever a question with Kazuya. Everything was certain. Absolute.

"My security had already identified and vetted six of the nine militants and none of them have any traceable connection to the Zaibatsu. They are pawns. Surely we can offer up a monetary ranso-"

"No. I'll deal with it."

"You'll handle it, sir?" Sukotochi stuttered, curing himself for forgetting who he was and where he was standing. Kazuya narrowed his eyes more.

"Is that a problem."

"No, sir."

"Five, possibly six victims to deal with. Deal with the families. Outbreak of a disease, your choice, that we were experimenting on hoping to cure. Obviously didn't work, can't return the contaminated bodies. Send them back the ashes and a decent compensation award." Kazuya said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. Like it was some everyday thing. Sukotochi hoped it wasn't. He made sure to take note of everything Kazuya said. To stray slightly was to be fired.

And by fired, he meant set on fire. He'd seen it happen. Eleven times to be exact.

"And the survivors, sir?" Sukotochi desperately wanted the conversation to be over, surprised that he lasted that long, but he could not leave any stone unturned.

"Hospitalize them in the private sector. Bring me a profile on each one and I decide from there. Get out of my office." Kazuya didn't need to say it twice. As Sukotochi beat feat out of the office. Kazuya pressed one button of his phone.

"Irvin."

"What's up, Bossman? What do you need?" Kazuya closed his eyes and had to stop himself from admonishing his longtime comrade. Kazuya swore sometimes the man was worse than Williams.

"Hostage situation at our main Research and Development building. Nine militants. No doubt the Zaibatsu is behind it."

"How do you want me to proceed." Kazuya smirked. For all his carefree demeanor and utter lack of respect for authority, Irvin knew when to be serious. Unlike his on-call assassin. He did his job and he did it well. Maybe that's why he and Williams had lasted so long.

"Send in the G-Force, have them extracted, split them up and have them executed and disposed of. Send one of them back to the Zaibatsu, as a message."

"Yes sir."

"You have twenty minutes to handle it. Remember: The less the survivors see, the better."

"Yes sir.

* * *

Asuka felt like she had just been hit by a train.

The twenty-one-year-old opened her eyes and was instantly met with nauseating stars. Lifting her head into the light gave her the sensation of a grenade going off within her skull. Jerking her head back down, she slowly refocused her eyes. The sight of her bruised thighs tied down to a chair had her alert within a nanosecond.

She snapped her head up again, this time braving the pain. Looking around, she saw six other employees and custodians tied down to chairs. All unconscious. Asuka started to scream before she realized something was muffling her voice. The noise that did manage to come out of her was enough to wake up the man next to her.

Mr. Tanaka.

The forty-seven-year-old scientist came to faster than Asuka and was screaming almost instantly, also muffled by handkerchief tied around his mouth. Tanaka looked terrible. His head was bloodied completely on one side, as if he had been hit. His normally immaculate white lab coat was covered with dirt and blood. She briefly wondered if she looked worse. She sure felt worse. Asuka looked back to Mr. Tanaka, who was still screaming and followed his gaze.

She wished she hadn't.

There lied two bloody bodies in custodial uniforms. Before she could do anything else, something crashed through the window and rolled over to where they were sitting. White mist filled the room. Everything went dark again.


	3. Unbearable

_"Father?" A little seven-year-old Asuka timidly said while poking her head into the family dojo, now located down the street from her house. In the nearly two years following her mother's death, her father's small family dojo had flourished and expanded to the point where the one on the property of her house was too small. Her father's new mission in life was to spend countless days and nights building upon it. Nothing else came first._

 _After all, it's not like he had a daughter to take care of._

 _"What is it, Asuka?" Her father asked, never faltering in his katas. The seven-year-old bitterly noted that it was just 'Asuka' now. No more 'Sweeties', no more 'Darlings'. Just Asuka. It wasn't too long after that Papa turned into 'Father'. But the young girl knew she would have to brush it aside if she wanted to get to her point. Training wouldn't start for another half hour; the dojo was vacant of any students or anyone else that threatened her father's attention. If she was going to ask what she was going to ask, she had to do it now._

 _"Can I start training?" Her father froze. Asuka briefly considered taking it back but determination set in. The shy girl had done everything under the sun to get her father's attention._

 _Straight A's in school?_

 _Nothing._

 _Win science fair competitions?_

 _Half-Hearted congratulations._

 _Drawing on the walls?_

 _Sighing and handing her off to the sitter._

 _The child was at her wits end and this was the last solution she could come up with._

 _"You don't like fighting," her father said, returning to his exercises. It was true. The girl loathed the martial-arts. When her father tried to privately teach her right before her mother died, the small, frail girl showed no talent for it and even worse, no desire to get better. Asuka was more than happy to spend her day with her nose in the books. Her view on fighting never changed and deep down Asuka was hoping that after her father realized how much he missed spending time with her, Asuka could quit martial arts and her father could work less._

 _"I was just a little kid then," the seven-year old responded. "I wanna learn now." Her father stopped his movements again and turned to look deeply at his daughter. Asuka prayed he never developed the talent of knowing when she was lying through her teeth. After what seemed like too long, Mr. Kazama turned back around and resumed his movements. Asuka felt defeated inside and slowly turned away. She paused when he said her name._

 _"Alright then. You start first thing tomorrow morning"_

* * *

He could feel a migraine coming on as his right-hand woman propped the elegantly wrapped gold box on his desk. A gift from his father, no doubt. A more sarcastic cynical part in Jin's mind irefully thought his father was making up for lost time. Nina suspected what was in it and he could confirm it. The smell had hit him long before she entered the room.

It made him hungry.

"I caught the delivery guy on his way in, said he was delivering lunch sent from G-Corp. I ran it through security to ensure nothing explosive or electronic was put in it. It came back clean." Nina said.

"And here I was expecting a bomb." Jin smirked.

"Let's see what's in it, shall we?"

"Go on," He couldn't help but notice how the sparkly, sequined box stood out his darkly decorated office. Everything was black. The couches, the desk, the tile floors. He sighed and thanked the gods that it had been a stormy week. The lights in his office had been turned off, giving the room a dark and sinister feel to it. It appealed to a certain part of him and he supposed he could indulge it every now and then. Now the darkness worked to shield the two inhabitants of the more gruesome details of the neatly chopped up cerebellum that for a split second looked like mushrooms and cauliflower. The box was the size of Jin's desk and, as he stood, he saw at least sixty large rolls of sushi neatly stacked and packed in the insulated box. To the normal human eye, it would have passed as a high-quality Sushi dinner.

But he could smell the human flesh from every muscle and tendon emanating from it.

He picked up a translucent sauce bottle and swirled it gently, watching the dark syrupy liquid slowly match his movements. It made him curious; it didn't overtly smell like blood nor did it smell like any other sauce he'd ever tasted. Can't be a poison, his father wasn't one to waste resources on shit he knew wouldn't work.

Mishima men were damn near immortal, having the Devil flowing through his veins amplified that. Jin had been enduring attempts on his life since he was fifteen, long before Heihachi betrayed him. His father was quite literally resurrected from the dead. A certain rogue Tekken Force commander with a questionable past had a habit of coming back from kamikaze-level missions without a scratch on him. Even the fully-human old fart managed survive the impossible just to make sure all his descendants, blood related or not, suffered at his hand. An endurance that modern medicine couldn't even bring down. Fate saw to it that all Mishimas suffered. No gun, no weapon of mass destruction, no suicidal act could hurt them. The most poison could do was make him feel nauseous.

He turned his attention back to the mystery sauce, now was not the time to brood. Maybe it was just some sauce he had never tasted before. Jin unscrewed the lid and smelled it. An almost sickeningly sweet peachy smell met his nostrils with a hint of soy and almonds to it. Underneath it all, he could smell a coppery scent subtly hidden within. A sweet peach sauce laced with blood and cyanide to make him feel ill.

Original.

After watching Jin poke at his meal, Nina picked up the white cardstock tucked away at the side.

"'I thought I'd buy you lunch,'" Nina read, "'Fresh from our gourmet kitchens. After all, a growing boy needs to eat properly.' Poison?"

"Just a little, however, say hello to one, or all, of our hijackers. Got anymore brilliant ideas?" Jin plainly asked, trying not to think of his dinner in front of him and the stirrings within himself. He could meet the devil inside half way on his gothic and sadistic tendencies, but he was not about to willingly eat some schmuck.

"Win some, lose some," Nina glibly said. For the world's most intimidating woman, she could be easygoing in her own twisted way. He admired that. Not that he'd ever tell her that.

"And what exactly did we win?" Jin asked.

"Hijackers are most likely already dead. No direct tie to us so it doesn't matter. I expected that to happen and, even if it didn't, I would have killed them myself. We didn't need them becoming a problem later on. Hacked into the mainframe within minutes of infiltrating G-Corps Main Research and Development lab and linked our intelligence up to promptly. Every file, every shred of data, every cookie is currently being dissected and should be ready to be presented to you after you come back from your...hunting trip." Nina stated.

"And the network link?"

"Severed shortly after; absolutely nothing traces this back to us. To be honest: we really didn't lose" Nina said. Jin was honestly impressed by the intricacy of her work but reminded himself he was dealing with an absolute professional. He should pay her more.

" _If_ the data is sound."

" _If_ the data is sound, that is."

"Regardless, I'm impressed. It all came back clean. Your tactical skills turned out to be worth every penny." Jin said

"You should pay me more," Nina said. It was the slight twitch of her lips that betrayed her otherwise serious expression. He supposed nearly four years of working together made him more adept at decoding her facial expressions. Jin wondered if she could do that same.

"Let's see how you run the company first," Jin stated.

"That reminds me, you leave for your 'trip' with Kuma at six, you should be returning by midnight. Debriefing at one that should last until two and then you can get some sleep before your flight to Nepal at nine."

"And the others staying at the retreat?"

"All clean. There are only three others and the backgrounds come up clear. World wars tend to put a damper on vacations. I would almost call it relaxing if it were anyone else but you. Gordo and I navigate through the Middle East just fine in your absence." Nina reported. The Middle East had been the one of Jin's main focal points in breeding hostility. The war-torn region was a few days away from celebrating a five-year aniversary for the armistice for the war between Iran, Turkey, and Syria. And that's when the Zaibatsu would strike and test out their Clockwork strategy. Turkey was divided into twelve quadrants and hit at each one randomly on the hour. Depending on the success, Jin would save Operation Clockwork for future use. He was far enough into his plans that all of Asia was eating out the palm of hands, begging for an end to the never-ending war. His conscience was constant at war with him but what needed to be done needed to be done.

For the first time in years, Jin felt something akin to excitement. Jin had learned long ago to never trust anyone, much less family, but he believed Nina Williams was more than competent to do his job and keep Gordo in line.

And if there was a problem, the military generals would be advising her through Operation Clockwork all the way.

"I'm curious, how did you manage to convince Kuma to go on this 'trip'," Nina asked.

"I told him we would have an honest discussion about his position within the company. The promised crate full of fresh bass helped convince him," Jin stated while leaning back and closing his eyes.

"And he just believed you?"

"I didn't necessarily lie."

"Dictator and still a boy scout," Nina said, while turning to walk away. "I was serious about the raise."

* * *

 _She felt him clawing at her forearms as she struggled to hold herself up and out of reach from that thing. That monster that looked too much like a man. It lifted her off of her feet and Asuka felt the world growing as black as it's feathers as she looked up to meet its nonhuman silvery-gold eyes._

Asuka snapped her head up to be greet by a white hospital room. She felt the grogginess of sleeping too long mix with the adrenaline from her dream.

Not a dream, she reminded herself.

A memory.

Asuka absentmindedly scratched at the thin white scars on her wrists that started ache while she tried her hardest to remember how she got where she was. She didn't remember being sick. The young woman had always had a clean bill of health. Aside from the expected broken bones that come from be a martial arts practioner, the girl had never needed to see a doctor or go to the hospital and hadn't been to one since she was seventeen. Asuka was so deep in her musings that she almost didn't notice the doctor walk in.

"You are awake, that is good. Doctor Johnson, I am," The doctor said in broken Japanese. He was a tall, obviously western man with red hair and gray eyes. Judging by his accent, he was obviously from some strange off-continent country. Like Ireland, or the UK, or maybe even Canada.

What kind of weird name is Johnson, anyway?

"What happened?" Asuka asked.

"Disorientation is common," the doctor said before grabbing a small metal flashlight and shining a light in her eyes. "Other you do not show any other sign of injury."

"Name?" the doctor probed

"Asuka Kazama," Asuka clearly, having been used to the procedure. Concussions were a common thing in her former livelihood.

"Good. Year?"

"This is videogame universe with no definitive year in it," Asuka flatly stated. The doctor furrowed his brow as he shined the light in her other eye.

"What did you say?" Doctor Johnson asked. Asuka looked up confusedly at him.

"I didn't say anything."

"Indeed, you didn't. Do you remember what happened?" Images of masked men flooded Asuka's head as it all became clear. She went as cold and pale as dead body while she gripped the papery hospital sheets like a vice. Johnson observed her silently.

"Interesting."

"How did I get out?" Asuka squeaked.

"There are clothes for you in the back closet. Get dressed. There is someone wanting to meet you" Asuka watched in wonder as the doctor's formerly detached expression turn into one of contempt. His posture stiffened, his grip on the light grew tighter, his body language screamed that she had done something very, _very_ wrong.

It reminded her so much of her father.

* * *

Kuma was rather surprised when Jin Kazama invited him to go skydiving. Since Kuma had waltzed in and claimed his former office in the Zaibatsu, the two had constantly been butting heads. Kuma's business proposals were constantly shot down, Jin refused to fund research into repopulating the local salmon reserves and, most infuriatingly, refused to give up his position as CEO to the company. Kuma was an obviously better leader and everyone could see that. Heihachi spent years grooming Kuma for the position. Jin never even went to business school. Or at least, Kuma thought he never went.

"I'm appreciate that you are joining me on this, Kuma," Jin said, his face blank and expressionless as normal. That's another thing that Kuma hated about Jin, he had absolutely no concept of facial expressions. Or personality for that matter. Kuma remember the days when Heihachi lead the Zaibatsu. Always exerting humor and charm and charisma that dazzled stuffy business men far and wide. Jin was about as interesting as a glass of milk and filing your mother's taxes. He wondered what made him like that. Jin used to be someone completely different.

"The honor is all mine." See, that's charm and charisma. Not only had Heihachi complimented him on his social skills, but every professor he every had has described him as charming. Kuma stuffed another fresh salmon into his mouth as he forced himself to pay attention to Jin. They sure had been flying for a long while. Everything started to look the same.

"I regret how hostile our relations have grown and would like to make it up to you. I am aware of your aspirations to be CEO but I can't give up my position. I would really appreciate it if you consider being my Vice President," Jin said. He might as well have been selling a house because Kuma wasn't buying it. Kuma watched as the wind continuously hit the young man's hair and bounce off of it, barely ruffling his bangs. He briefly considered asking him what kind of hair gel he used. None of the high-end expensive stuff that Heihachi had bought was ever that strong. But since they were having an open discussion for the first time in months, Kuma felt as if there were things that he needed to get off of his furry chest.

"I'd be honored to have the position," Kuma stated. It wasn't CEO, but it'd have to do for now. After a long pause, he continued. "You really should. Regret your actions, I mean." Jin's face hardened as he prepared to answer with a speech he had given millions of times before.

"Look, I know you do not understand, but this war is a necessary evil-" Kuma held up one paw, silencing the twenty-five-year-old, while shaking his head. Jin looked almost confused.

"I couldn't care less about your petty little war. Well, except the fact that I can't order fish from Alaska anymore, that really pisses me off. I mean, they have the freshest salm—, I'm getting off topic. I mean how you've treated me. Jin, I know you. I remember when Heihachi brought you in, all thin and quiet and shy. We used to be brothers. I almost considered you my cub. I remember comforting you when you'd sneak out into the woods at night and break down. The times when you would take me on long walks when I missed my dad. And then you just left, without a single goodbye," Kuma angrily said. Jin looked almost flustered at the speech, clearly not expected to hear that from the grizzly bear. Probably not expecting to hear that from anyone. How long had it been since the boy had been around someone that ever cared about him?

Far too long, Kuma decided as he watched Jin lean back and stare at out the open helicopter door. His features softened a little. He looked a little bit like the fifteen-year-old Heihachi had first brought in.

"I remember that first week. How hard it had been." Jin looked up at the metal ceiling of the helicopter. He then looked at Kuma, small smile but eyes filled with regret and woe. "I remember how sometimes you'd just lay at my feet, and you'd let me pet you. How it hurt would stop for a little while..." Kuma saw an opening to finally have a breakthrough to Jin, and took the opportunity.

"It doesn't have to be this way, Jin. You're a good person, Heihachi knew-" And just like that, whatever allowed Jin those thirty seconds of sincerity snapped shut again. His eyes hardened into a glare, his body became as rigid steel as his face reverted back to stone-cold determination. Kuma wondered what he said that was so wrong.

"Kuma, let's have a spar," Jin said as he stood up and removed his trench coat while aproaching the bear.

"In a helicopter? Are you cr-" Jin's fist cut Kuma off immediately, knocking him out with one punch.

Jin lifted the four-hundred-pound bear with very little effort and careless walked him over to the wide-open helicopter door. Without any second thoughts or reconsideration, the Mishima heir tossed the prized pet out the door.

"Ryuashi," Jin called out to pilot. "You can stop flying around Hokkaido now. Take me back to the tower."

"Understood, sir."

* * *

Sukotochi wished he had straightened his office up more. While, to the human eye, the room was nearly impeccable, Sukotochi saw the minute flaws within the room. The sofa cushions weren't properly fluffed. The employee file on his desk wasn't neatly organized. The picture of him and his son was sat at an odd angle. Again, details the average human would either not notice or disregard.

The only problem?

His current visitor wasn't exactly human.

Not once since Kazuya Mishima taken over had he paid Sukotochi a visit in his office. He was more of the type that demanded others come to him. Never by phone, those can be tapped at any time. His method was a lot more unnerving and disturbing.

Kazuya summoned him by his mind.

Sukotochi could easily be minding his own business, _his literal business,_ looking over deals, deciding what he was going to eat for lunch when a sense of dreadful unease came over him. The sensation that he was doing something wrong, like sneaking into a top-secret military base. There were no clear words for what he wanted; he couldn't hear what Kazuya Mishima was saying but, he just knew what he wanted. Which employee was to be summoned up to his office, the more unfortunate times when it was Sukotochi himself, how things were supposed to be conducted, when to pass on a business deal etc. He hated it, but it turns out he hated this more.

"Mr. Mishima, I wasn't expecting to see you," Sukotochi said in the most even tone he had, forcing the more negative thoughts away. He discovered Kazuya could hear his thoughts the hard way when, after a particularly unpleasant meeting, Sukotochi mentally thought Kazuya needed to take on up the ass. He woke up in an alleyway five days later with a very broken and infected leg.

"The survivors." As usually, nothing was ever a question with that man. Kazuya only ever wanted confirmation that his orders were followed to a T.

"All have been monetarily compensated. Most were old, long time employees, however. So, sadly, they're used to this and the protocol. Dr. Johnson said that the chemical gas used in the retrieval process worked well to leave them with short-term memory loss... however... there is a few problems." Sukotochi stood by his motto of never looking Kazuya Mishima in the eye. That didn't mean he couldn't feel the glare. It seeped into his blood like poison.

"The problems."

"The gas seemed to have an adverse reaction in one of the survivors: He died short after arrival."

"You handled it?"

"He had no family. Nothing to handle. That was only a small problem."

"And the bigger problem..."

"One of the hostages was an intern. She was the last one to wake up. Dr. Johnson said she seems to fully remember the events that happened and is clearly traumatized by it. I am worried she'll go public with this."

"She said she would?" The was actual curiosity in his tone. Strange

"I haven't met with her yet, she just woke up twenty minutes ago. She's on her way here now."

"File," Kazuya demanded. Sukotochi closed up the file he had just been looking at and handed it Kazuya, never once making eye contact. The phone rang and Sukotochi quickly picked it.

"What is it?... Alright, then... Send Ms. Kazama up immediately." If Sukotochi had been looking at Kazuya, he definitely would have seen the double take and the briefest look of incredulity. Sukotochi hung up the phone.

"What's this girl's name."

"Asuka Kazama. She is one of our grant interns, I was supposed to be meeting with her within the next few weeks to offer her a permanent position in our engineering lab." Kazuya narrowed his eyes at him as if Sukotochi was lying to him and Kazuya was waiting to bust him on it.

"What's this girl like."

"I've never met her but her progress reports from the engineers are glowing , they all sa-" Kazuya held up a hand to silence the old man.

"After you meet with her, send her up to me. Immediately," Kazuya said before turning to walk away. Sukotochi sighed audibly as soon as the door closed.

Another bright employee to be snuffed out at the hands of that monster.

* * *

All the way across the world, a handsome man lit up a cigar. It had been a long day and he had been glad to relieve some stress. In front of him lay a single report. The latest intel from the Zaibatsu.

"Nadine," The man called out. "Book me quickest flight to Nepal possible."

* * *

 **Thank you all from reading another chapter of Flying into Fatal Lightning.**

 **I honestly feel like Kuma doesn't really get much love out there, so I had bring him in. I actually look at the Scenario Campaign dialogues and Tekkenpedia pages a lot to make sure I'm as close to the story is possible. I haven't played Tekken 6 in YEARS but I can't believe I never noticed the little detail of Jin literally kicking Kuma's ass and throwing him out of a helicopter into the Hokkaido wilderness. I just thought Jin had banished him. I guess Jin inherited the Mishima trait of throwing people out off of elevated spaces.**

 **Thank you to romi .arkan for the nice review. Because there a so many characters within the story, in-depth backstories are a rare thing, even with the main characters. I do plan on going into detail on the backstory of Asuka and how she came to turned away from fighting and embrace science.**

 **A special thank you to my beta-reader pieck-aboo.**

 **Feel free to favorite or follow if you liked it and please review even if you didn't. Flames are welcomed.**


	4. Troublesome Threesome

He felt her the minute she entered Sukotochi's office. The Devil inside immediately started straining at his bonds and ordered the girl to be found. To be destroyed.  
Damn, the girl really was a Kazama.

Kazuya sighed, silencing his long-time comrade in the middle of his debriefing.

"What's the matter, Kazzy?" Bruce Irvin inquired.

"I told you that you were never address me as that." Kazuya said, nearly a reflex after so many years. Irvin had done this some many times it was to be expected at least once a week.

"So strict." Irvin sighed as the lady in the room quietly giggled, but thankfully chose not to comment.

"No matter, continue with the report." Kazuya ordered. Irvin turned his attention back to the stack of papers in his lap.

"We tracked down the security guard who let them in the gate, that man was later fired...sorry, I misread. That man was later set on fire."

"As protocol dictates..." Kazuya interjected.

"Right. 'After the hostages were evacuated safely at exactly 5:58 AM, right before the sixth hostage could be executed'-"

"Thanks to my wondrous shot" Interjected Anna. Kazuya almost surprised that she had stayed quiet as long as she did. Bruce half-glared at the brunette for the interruption.  
"Duly noted. Continue." Kazuya said

"One militant was killed by the aforementioned 'wondrous shot'. Which, for the record, was kind of sloppy. Not to mention messy. It seems like you're losing your touch, Williams." He hid his smirk as his partner began fuming in her seat.

"How. Dare. You. Irvin" Anna ground out. Irvin grinned, a face full of teeth that only worked to irritate the woman more. Kazuya was quickly losing the patience to play babysitter today.

"Report." Kazuya said. Both of the occupants in the room were seasoned veterans when it came to interacting with the man and as such were well aware that something was troubling the dark shadow the moment they entered the room. They knew when joking was begrudgingly, very begrudgingly, tolerated and when they needed to be the cold-blooded professionals they were. Anna's mind briefly thought of their portly former co-worker who didn't have as high an aptitude when it came to understanding Kazuya's miniscule tonal shifts. Such a shame to see him fired.

Out of a cannon, no less.

"'All eight of the surviving militants were promptly dealt with, which I will get into in a minute. All of the survivors were safely extracted, except for'...except for..." Bruce trailed off in his reading as he looked for what seemed to be a missing paper from his stack. How such a detailed report could accumulate within twelve hours of the operation completing no longer impressed Kazuya the way it use to. For all of their faults, the two people in from of him were no doubt a powerhouse that were deadly to any who ended up on the wrong side. Williams and Irvin had their jobs and did them with the upmost diligence. Add that to the boundless resources that G-Corp offered and they were damn near unstoppable. Kazuya watched as Anna lifted a stray paper that seemed to escape Irvin's sight.

"Thanks. Lead bio-mechanical scientist Coscoko Tanaka suffered a severe traumatic brain injury at the hands of the hijackers. Looks like Agent Shannon didn't do the bastard any favors. He was pronounced dead on arrival." Agent Shannon was one of the many brilliant patented inventions to come out of G-Corporation's laboratories. An extremely vicious chemical gas that rarely saw the light of day. In mild doses, the toxic gas caused chemical burns, fainting, memory loss and seizures. In much larger doses, convulsing, strokes, cardiac, vein collapse and erosion of the ménages. A perfect military weapon that Kazuya was just waiting to put into play when the war took a turn for the worse and human rights violation were more likely to be overlooked.

"And the hijackers." Kazuya pressed. Bruce's smirk turned into a maniacal grin that would strike fear into the heart of anyone who wasn't currently in the room. He pearling white teeth flashed against his dark skin. For the first time in a long while, Kazuya actually felt something akin to excitement. It was so rare that Irvin would show his darker side, even to Kazuya, a one of the few men who Bruce could say he trusted. Underneath that coy and charismatic demeanor lied a man whose sadist tendencies were only rivaled by Kazuya himself.

"Dealt with... Turns out they make great sushi." Bruce said. Anna had a look of bafflement and Kazuya himself was confused for a few moments. When the clarity of Bruce's words hit him, he honest felt disgust. Yes, back in the day when he had virtually any control over Devil, he had unknowingly eaten quite a few people. But he had been a Hachijou descendant with very little training on how to control himself. The man in front of him, however, was fully human. In the years of knowing him, Kazuya never pegged Bruce Irvin as a cannibalistic person.

"So, how do humans taste?" But nevertheless, he was curious. It was so very rare to come across a human cannibal. Bruce's grin grew impossibly wider.

"I don't know, it wasn't for me. We felt that it would be nice to send an...olive branch of sorts to your son. It seemed like a good way to mend the difficult relations between our two companies. Let him feel that G-Corp love." Anna held a dainty hand to her face in an effort to hide the slight chuckle. Kazuya made no such effort to hide his laughter and Bruce quickly joined in.

The debriefing carried on for another half-hour as both Bruce and Anna meticulously went over the details regarding the hostage situation. It was always refreshing when Bruce or Anna handled situations like this. He felt a sort of ease in their capabilities and needn't hover over them like the rest of the incompetent fucks working for the company.

"However, we still have one pressing issue. We still have no leads on who leaked the intel on the Roxnal data." Anna stated

"It's become clear at this point that the data was leaked from the inside. However, I strongly doubt that the whistleblower actually worked inside the mai-" A raised palm silence Bruce at an instance.

"I am taking care of her." Kazuya vaguely said.

"Her? Damn, girl must have some serious bal-"

"What is that supposed to mean?" Anna interjected. Bruce rudely held up a hand to silence her.

"You can go a feminist tangent later, right now, I want to hear about the big bad girl that tried to bring the company to its knees." Bruce demanded

"A young researcher heading the environmental sector of Research and Development. Perhaps you heard of her." Kazuya lifted one of two files directly in front of him and forcibly tossed it to Bruce. The internal strain was making it extremely difficult to move. Bruce opened the file and seemed shocked to see the picture in the file. Anna curious leaned over to Bruce and raised an eyebrow at what she saw.

"Well," Anna started, "At least I was right about the leak not being here. Though, I must admit, I would have never imagined that the tree hugger of all people would betray us."

"More importantly, how did she get access to our highly classified information, like the Roxnal data? She has nowhere near the necessary clearance required to gain access to that"

"I'm still trying to figure that out, that's why I am ordering you both to remain within the building for the next forty-eight hours. This clearly was not a one-person leak." Kazuya slowly said.

"Kazuya," Bruce started, though he was aware that Kazuya already knew what he was about to ask. "Are you certain that it was this child?" Anna and Bruce were aware of what was to happen any time that they were asked to remain on company grounds like this. It was always ended up the same way and was never pretty. Though desensitized to that sort of business due to the nature of their work, they made sure to hit only the correct mark. A particularly nasty situation led to hasty decisions and innocent deaths that left them all wary of blindly taking those kinds of orders. Thorough debriefings were one of the few things that both demanded from Kazuya, to which he whole-heartedly agreed. No matter how different the three were, circumstances made them the same in one aspect: They were killers.

But they would never be murderers.

"I have known about this for quite a while, however, I didn't think it would go this far this soon." Kazuya slowly stated, cautious of the reactions he would face. Bruce was about to respond when a ringing noise silenced them all at once.

Only three people knew the number to Kazuya's office, two of which were currently sitting before him. Must be Sukotochi updating him on the Kazama situation.

Just the thought brought that restlessness back to the forefront as the devil inside worked to claw its way out of him, demanding he tear the girl limb from limb. It was an incredibly rare moment when Kazuya experienced a loss of control over his malevolent side, he let out another shaky breath to calm himself as he raised the buzzing phone to his ear.

"What."

"The girl was unwilling to listen to me. I'm sending her up now." Sukotochi said. Kazuya hung up immediately before turning his attention back to his comrades.

He could feel her getting closer.

"Anna. Bruce." This got their attention immediately. It was so rare that Kazuya would address them so personally.

"Back room. Now." Kazuya ordered. Without question, the two quickly gathered their reports and departed for the room five feet from behind Kazuya's desk. He again tried to suppress his other half, but it was getting harder and harder.

After all, it had been over twenty years since he had felt this retched burning sensation.

* * *

A man clad in a silk black shirt and matching slacks reclined in his chair as the flight-attendant served him more Brandy. The complete wardrobe downgrade grated on his nerves to no end, but he that he was to endure at least another week of looking like a regular civilian.

Just long enough to do what needed to be done then get the hell out of dodge.

* * *

Contrary to popular belief, Asuka Kazama was not an angry person by nature. Nor was she bitchy by any means. That was just a façade. A Tough shell that she relied on heavily to get her through some of the lonely parts of her childhood. She had forced herself to be more expressive with her anger over the years.

But now, Asuka was extremely pissed off.

The whole ordeal since waking up had been one of absolute fuckery and it was stressing her out to no end.

And she thought her nerves couldn't be anymore frayed.

Ever since Dr. Yonstien, or whatever his name was, had security escort her to the main G-Corp building, she had been fuming.

And then she met Sukotochi, the legendary fuck himself.

Truly a shell of a man, he aptly deflected all of her questions about the hostage crisis and used an incredibly demeaning and condescending tone masked with a conciliatory inflection in his voice. And to add insult to injury, tried repeatedly to buy her off with money. AS if she would keep quiet and obey like some simpering idiot. She knew better. Her moral compass could never be swayed by monetary bribes.

Cocky.

Just like those kids she was forced to deal with when she was younger. Those kids that used their skill to beat on her and make her feel inferior to no end.

The whole two-hour meeting had left a bad taste in her mouth from the start. She felt a sense of restlessness and inner turmoil that seeped into her the minute she walked into office. It felt dangerously similar to one of her panic attacks, save for the fact that it didn't get worse. Like a man that stares at you through the window but never breaks in. It clawed at her like a caged animal but never asserted itself like it normally did. After conceding and pretending to go along with the bullshit that shell of a man effortlessly spewed, Asuka properly ending the conversation with a "Fuck you, I quit. Have a nice day.", and a promise of a lawsuit.

Finding the exit locked had troubled her greatly.

Sukotochi had a face devoid of all his former arrogant businessman charm when she turned back around to face him.

"Open the door." Asuka demanded.

"I am asking that you use some form of ration here. Think logically before you ruin your future"

"I am being perfectly rational." Asuka said through gritted teeth, "Open. The. Door."

"The door is designed to lock every so often for fifteen minutes. It's a security measure."

"That is the dumbest and most counter-intuitive security measure I have ever heard of." Asuka spat out. Sukotochi sighed a heavy sigh, as if he had been forced to do something he really didn't want to. Part of Asuka theorized that it was letting her leave but she quickly realized that couldn't have been it. His posture too heavy, his eyes too remorseful. It was as if this man was actually sacrificing something dear to him without any choice in the matter.

"Behind the doorway to my left, you will find a hallway that leads to an elevator. It goes directly to the main floor, so there is only one button to press. I kindly ask you to never mention it to anyone." The old man heaved out. He refused to look her in the eye but as she passed his desk, his hand shot out and gripped her wrist tightly.

"Ms. Kazama...I'm so sorry this couldn't work out." Sukotochi looked at her and Asuka understood perfectly what was happening. Understood the heaviness behind his eyes.

She wasn't making it out of the building.

That impending fear of doom had made sense to her.

She knew too much and it was known from the beginning that she wouldn't obediently walk the line like the others.

Asuka slowly pulled her arm from Sukotochi's grasp and continued down that wretched path. Funny.

Nearly twenty-two years old and she hadn't lived once.

But if this was her curtain call, she would do it with the grace no one had ever thought she had.

* * *

On a different plane headed to the same direction, a much younger man relished in the stale and silent air of his private jet. While he wasn't one to bask in possessions, it didn't mean he didn't silently appreciate them from time to time. He too was dressed unlike his normal attire. As opposed to the ridiculously overpriced stiff suits, he found himself dressed in an oversized grey sweatshirt and matching sweatpants, along with old sneakers. A true fish out of water when compared to the high-end luxury interior of the private plane.

But Jin Kazama didn't mind too much.

His was raised without want and he tried to live up to that teaching as best he could.

* * *

Kazuya sighed and leaned his head back. He could practically feel every step the Kazama girl made towards him. He hadn't felt it decades but at the same time, it was woefully familiar.

For a second, it reminded him of her.

Kazuya forced that thought to the back of his mind. Now, he focused on the Devil clawing its way out. He focused on the voices in his head calling him a traitor. A coward. The threats of vengeance on Kazuya and the world for the great injustice done to the Devil. It had been so long since he and the Devil quarreled in such a way. Despite what everyone else thought, the Devil knew that Kazuya was planning on letting this girl leave in one piece. It was a slip in Kazuya's carefully guarded thoughts during Devil's attempted seizure of Kazuya's body. Just because he had a partnership with the him, doesn't mean that Devil was entitled to all his thoughts and plannings. Yes, he had no intentions of killing the girl with his bare hands, but that didn't mean he was letting the girl live. She was a Kazama, she had to die.

And the last time Kazuya made the mistake of giving mercy to someone, he died.

The elevator opened up and Kazuya had to force himself not to expect a white dress and painfully empathetic eyes.

As he predicted, the moment she crossed the threshold, the Devil silenced.

* * *

 **Sorry it took so long to update this story. I tried to lengthen the chapter as much as I could.**

 **The goal is to update this story _at least_ twice a month. This story is undoubtable going to be long. And I'd like to be done with it within a year, maybe two.**

 **But enough of that**

 **For those who saw I updated recently but didn't see a new chapter, I posted a short prologue at the beginning of FIFL**

 **Thank you to my reviewers:**

haizakishougo and Zemo

 **If you liked it, feel free to follow, fave it or leave me a review. If you want to leave a flame or critique, feel free to do that too. If you want to PM me about anything, I respond pretty quickly.**

 **Until next time, (Which is definitely within the next few weeks)**

 **The Unoriginal Emo**


	5. Burden

The elevator ride was suffocating.

Knowing that it was a one-way trip made Asuka jittery. and brought back a familiar anxiety. Her stomach did 360's as her heart pounded away inside of her. She had a bit of a panic disorder, it manifested when she was seventeen and never really went away. Everyday chores often ended with her immobilized by fear, sweaty and shaking. Asuka occasionally wondered if the other competitors felt the same way she did but immediately dismissed it. No one else saw the things she did. And most of the other competitors were repeat participants. Who would ever willingly go back to that?

Anyone standing next to her would have admired how calm she appeared, how graciously she was going to face death. But inside, the girl was a train wreck, trapped in her memories. The events that happened during hostage crisis were slowly making their way back to her. Blurring over her vision were the echoes of the things she was subjected to. Not a moment's rest since she woke up in the medical lab. It was difficult for her to be able to tell how much of it was real anymore. Reality was becoming harder and harder to discern. But not right now. Now she was completely in her mind and ignorant to reality. However, the memories currently plaguing her had nothing to do with the events that happened in the Research and Development building. No, that was not what was looming over her. Asuka was recalling a time that was much, much worse.

The Fifth King of Iron Fist Tournament.

Oh, how her father pleaded and begged for her to enter the tournament. Asuka had been stunned, a month before his accident, her father had stopped speaking to her. After her seventeenth birthday, Asuka had begun to train less and less and eventually stopped just two months before her graduation. Fighting had long since been the only thing she and her father could talk about. Asuka could deal with that, for she too had given up on trying to please the world's most depressed man. The Osakan Beauty understood that her father still grieved for her mother, but her empathy could only go so far.

He left her alone at such a young age.

And then the attack on her father's dojo happened.

Asuka had spent the day shadowing at Osaka City University and had never even heard of the God Fist technique or the increase in vandalized dojos happening across the country. Even if she had heard of the Kenpo warrior, Asuka doubted she would have cared much. She almost missed the dojo completely on her way home. It was a passing glance that alerted her of the broken windows and the glass shards under her feet. The dojo was almost unrecognizable. Whole parts of wall were punched out. The lights were off, the Kazama sign on the dojo was missing. Blood coated the establishment walls and ceiling like a massacre had just occurred, which in some way, it did. It was as if a natural disaster had singled out the building and left all other buildings completely unmarred.

It turned out that Asuka had missed the Kempo man by mere minutes. She found the unconscious bodies of so many of the students just strewn around the dojo. Most had limbs that were bent at awkward angles. Asuka wasn't always fond of her dojo-mates, it boiled to the point of down-right hatred at some points, but even she couldn't stand to see them that way. She awakened the student in the least injured state, a Korean boy whose name she couldn't remember, and questioned him as she simultaneously dialed the authorities. She'll never forget the way his blood stained her school uniform and her knees. Asuka tried her absolute hardest to maintain a fair and calm voice, but much like today, she could only manage a half-decent job. It was only after Asuka had gotten off the phone that she had even considered her father. Panic filled her like an overflowing glass. By then the Korean boy, despite her best efforts to keep him awake, had fallen back to unconsciousness and couldn't be roused any further. As Asuka carefully put the boy back on the ground, she scanned the room to see if she could see her father. There was no sign of him. The lead in her feet slowed Asuka's movement significantly and looking back, she still berated herself for it. It took, in Asuka's opinion, far too long for her to notice the gaping hole in the back wall. She slowly walked through the back door and into the meditation area outside. And sure enough, there he laid, covered in blood and plaster. Asuka just stood by the door way, just watching in horror.

It wasn't until she felt hands gently pushing her out her way that she realized she had completely frozen. Her father could have died and she would have stood there and watched. He was half-conscious as the paramedics put him on a stretcher and gazed half-lidded at his daughter as he was rolled out.

Two students died that day.

Her father suffered from a fracture spine, ruptured spleen, a broken leg and a skull fracture. His jaw had to be wired shut. It was two whole days before he was coherent and the first thing he did was order his daughter to enter the Iron Fist Tournament. He couldn't talk and made up for it with wild, erratic gestures and excessive pointing. Asuka quickly got tired of it and fetched him a laptop from the house. He immediately pulled up the online poster for the fifth King of Iron Fist Tournament and then pointed to her. It instantly took Asuka back to the conversation she had had with the detective handling the case the day before. The detective told her that the Kempo man was likely to enter the next Iron Fist. Asuka knew that her father only wanted her to enter for revenge. But, the earnest and hopeful look that he gave her, like she was his ultimate savior, made her hesitate on instantly rejecting him. _Just this one last time_ , Asuka thought. It wasn't until she returned home, after receiving neither victory nor vengeance, that Asuka realized he only sent her as publicity to booster the reputation of his disgraced dojo.

For the most part, partaking in the tournament had been relatively pleasant. Most of the competitors were friendly, the accommodations were nice. Asuka made it pretty far into the tournament before she was eliminated by some American basket case. Even after being eliminated, she was told to proceed to the final stage. Apparently, the American psychopath was a repeat competitor that had a nasty habit of leaving the tournament after the semi-finals. Asuka doesn't question it and made her way to the desolate wasteland, grateful that it was almost over. It was about five minutes after she had arrived at Ground Zero that she finally noticed an intense feeling of dread. Something bad was going to happen, the girl knew, but she couldn't figure out what or why. The Osakan native shook it off and dismissed it as nerves before pressing forward.

After ten more minutes of walking, the agonizing feeling of terror on mounting with each, Asuka finally reached the fighting grounds. It looked as appealing as the rest of wastelands, but Asuka was quickly distracted from all that. What captured her attention immediately had her wanting to run for the hills.

There, in that desolate wasteland, were two monsters she could have never even imagined in her worst nightmare. They both just stood there, eyeing each other. One looked so far from human that Asuka legitimately questioned if it was the end of all days. The man, if you could even call it that, wore the remains of torn and burnt clothing. He was covered in a strange fiery-molten substance that attached to his body like a skin. Maybe it was skin. Asuka didn't know. There was a white horn protruding from its forehead. Asuka stood there for far too long. It looked at her, determined her of no value, then turned its attention back to the fellow hell spawn in front of it. For the most part, the demon in front of the other demon didn't look so menacing from the back. It had the stature of a man, the only difference being the strong, black wings coming from its back. That is, until it turned to her.

The worst thing about that demon... was the fact that it looked just like a normal man. A man with grotesque tattoos. As it grinned, baring its teeth and fangs, Asuka could do little more than make a break for it.

She never saw it coming.

She was shoved down to the ground within seconds of moving. She trashed and struggled but there was nothing the seventeen-year old could do to save herself. The jacket of her jumper was torn off of her completely, leaving her in her blue sports top and the remainder of her shorts. She felt something dig into her back and press into the small of her back in a straight, horizontal line. No sooner did she feel something flat and wet and slimy trace the line. She shuddered. The man-creature jumped away from her like she was disease-ridden. She felt and electrifying sensation within her as she floated from the ground she lay, turning and facing the monster that looked both amused like she was brand new toy, and disgusted as if she was the monster. Asuka floated a foot off the ground, eye-level with the monster, not able to move a single limb. Just her eyes. She gazed at the fire-monster and found it gazing back at her, uninterested.

Whatever it was holding her up vanished as unexplained, Asuka fell into the grip of the winged-monster-man. It held her by the forearm, leaving deep, deep scratches on her otherwise flawless skin. She'd never forget its eyes. The bright golden hue of the world's most twisted set of eyes. Never in all of her years of fighting did Asuka find a pair of eyes so sadistic, so pleasured by inflicting pain onto others. One hand left her arm and traveled down to her waist. The monster-man groped her bottom and pulled her closure to him, never relenting his grip.

"Such a shame, you look like a lot of fun. Even if you have such a bitter taste. No one ever lets me have fun anymore." His voice was electrifying in her ear for so many reasons. Most of which disgusted Asuka greatly. Suddenly, his hands were at her neck and Asuka was once again at arms-length again.

Air quickly escaped Asuka's lungs no matter how hard she tried to get it to stay. Was this really how she was going to die. Seventeen. No job, no friends, no father to care about her when she's gone. The irony. She died without ever having lived. Stars quickly covered her eyes and as Asuka desperately grabbed at the creature's arms as the world grew black.

She didn't think she had been out for too long. Armageddon had most likely not happened yet. Awakened by voices from both inside and out, Asuka struggled to sit up and face the wreckage of all the things she had seen. The fire-monster was still fiery, and monstery, but the demon man looked more man and a lot less demon. His voice didn't carry the echoed weight to it anymore. She wanted to dismiss the winged man as a mere figment of her imagination, if only there wasn't a volcano monster standing in front of, casually conversing. Not casually, but still conversing. As Asuka debating on whether she should open her mouth, the man tilted his head in her direction. Asuka snapped her mouth shut immediately and watched carefully as the man slightly shook his head, not looking at her once.

"Leave" Said a smooth and inexplicably captivating voice. She bolted, never looking back or saying any thank-you's to the strange demon-man. She was lucky to be alive.

It was later on, when Asuka was peeling off her clothes that she noticed, besides the claw marks that the demon-man left on her, all of her other injuries had healed miraculously. However, right above her waist was a red, horizontal line from the demon. Asuka prayed that it would go away. She prayed about a lot of things that day. So concerned was she on the tournament's events, she never noticed the white feather entangled with the black ones falling from her clothing.

* _Ting*_

Asuka was snapped back into the present by the opening of the elevator door and the heaviness of the office outside of it. Standing felt nearly impossible, the air turned into lead as her feet morphed into jelly. The fear was finally getting to her. She could not face her end. Asuka had nowhere to go. There was only one button on that dreadful elevator and she did not want to find out if Sukotochi was capable of killing someone with his own hands. Probably.

The room in front of her was dimly-lit, a stark contrast to the almost offensive brightness that seeped into every aspect of Sukotochi's office. She could make out the silhouettes of the furniture, much less see any detail. She could make out him, however. Desperately, Asuka tried to grasp at the ever-elusive courage that always seemed to evade her as she approached the man so painfully similar to the monster that attacked her.

* * *

"So, what do you think the deal is?" Anna Williams said as she took another swing of Bruce's flask. How he got away with drinking in the job, she'd never know.

"With what?" Bruce asked as he unfastened the first few buttons of his designer suit. It was strange, Anna thought. The look did not suit him in the slightest but somehow seemed like the most Bruce Irvin the man had ever looked.

"With Nature Valley turning on us." Anna clarified. Bruce furrowed his brow for a few moments ad he tried to figure out who the assassin was talking about. He swore the woman had nicknames for everyone. He just never wanted to know what his was. After all the years he'd spent with her, he knew it probably wasn't anything pleasant. After he narrowed the nickname down to two completely different people, he flipped a mental coin and went with it.

"I'm surprised that I'm not that surprised. Today's youth is screwed." Bruce stated, unaware, or at least pretending to be, of the sinking feeling taking root in Williams stomach. She and Mishima were always so sensitive to anything related to time. But he supposed losing twenty years of your life and coming back to a completely new world would do that to anyone.

"True. I wonder if that's who he's meeting with right now." Anna mused

"Doubt it. Kazzy would definitely have us sitting in on something like that."

"But it is a woman, a young one by the sound of it."

"Even men like him get lonely, Annie." Bruce joked. He reached for the flask, and after an empty glare, Anna handed it over. She could help but notice that Bruce seemed as tired as Kazuya. With Mishima, it took little guessing to figure out what his problem was, though Anna would never point it out to him. Bruce, on the other hand, was wholly different beast in a strictly metaphorical way. Neither she, nor Kazuya got correctly guess what his problem was and each time he divulged, it was something different from the last. Anna knew she could ask and Bruce would oblige her, but she could also tell when she shouldn't. The bombshell assassin had more tack than people realized.

"Kazuya doesn't get lonely. He gets bored. Before _she_ came along, I thought he was in the closet." The _she_ in question never needed to be elaborated and should never be, it was an unwritten rule. _She_ was only to be mentioned during late nights with the windows closed and the radio blasting. Neither Anna nor Bruce wanted to imagine the repercussions of mentioning _her_ name. They knew that it was likely nothing would have happened, but it was also likely that the worst could have happened. Bruce thought for a moment, took a swig and leaned back.

"Thing were a lot different before _she_ showed up."

* * *

 **Thank you for reading another chapter of Flying into Fatal Lightning. I considered adding Kazuya's conversation with Asuka here but thought that it just _looks_ better this way. Next chapter is most-likely going to be Kazuya's conversation with Asuka, so it should be out by October 5th. That's right. I'm so confident that I'll it out soon, I'm giving it a definite upload date.**

 **Thank you to Devil's Best Dancer for your kind review.**

 **As always, feel free to fav or follow, and always leave a _review_ , even if it's mean. PM at anytime with an questions, comments, or desire for chat, I respond very quickly.**


	6. Powerless

**Well.**

 **This is awkward.**

 **It appears that instead of uploading chapter six, I uploaded chapter three instead**

 **You are more than welcome to laugh at my sleep deprived stupidity**

* * *

"It's nice to meet you, Miss Kazama. I've heard so much about you." Kazuya said as the young woman strode towards him. Funny. She tried so hard to look confident. The girl was practically quaking in her shoes but had the audacity to look as if she had some control over the situation. He liked that. That level of grit was rare these days. His pathetic excuse of a son sure as hell didn't have it. Part of Kazuya hoped that he wouldn't have to end the life of such a bright, young woman but, if it came to that, it came to that. Now was the time to test her.

"All good, I hope." Asuka stated as she reached his desk. Kazuya stood to shake her hand. He couldn't help but notice how dainty and trembling it was. Not like a fighter.

"You're a rising star within the engineering department. Not many of G-Scholars make it as far as you have. Much less with the praise of a large majority of the elder staff. You must be something special." Kazuya was met with a blank stare and utter disinterest in anything he had to say. This was not boredom he saw in her eyes. It was defeat. He had seen it on so many corrupt board members, underlings, lackeys and many others unfortunate enough to find themselves in front of his desk. Kazuya was G-Corp's most well-guarded secret. Most who met the man never lived to tell the tale. The girl knew that she likely was not leaving this meeting alive. He wondered how much of it was Sukotochi's fault and how much was just that cursed Kazama intuition.

"I try to be my best." Her voice was haunting. It was both upbeat and miserable. Kazuya knew that he had to approach this in a far different manner than he had planned. Blunt and tactless

"Clearly, there's a dilemma here. You know too much. You saw too much. All of our researchers and personnel are locked in strict confidentiality agreements. So, when little... hiccups like this occur-"

"Little hiccups?" Asuka interrupted, rightfully incredulous.

"We pay our compensation fees and go about business." Kazuya moved on, as if Asuka hadn't said a word. "G-Scholars aren't contracted personnel. Hell, we'd never let one work within our buildings before." It was true. G-Scholars were merely interns that typically confined themselves to G-Corporation sponsored research lab in universities. They were paid in stipends, they did not earn regular salaries and were only required to attended lectures at G-Corp Reseach and Development buildings twice a month. The whelp in front of him, however, was a special case. She somehow charmed and impressed on the director of the main building during a monthly lecture, working her way into a lab assistant role of sorts. From the looks of it, it was just glorified secretarial busy work, but it earned her a slightly higher stipend and a name within the building. The same incompetent fuck from the main branch that failed to alert the corporate building of the ridiculous amount of security breaches and warning signs that led to the hostage crisis, also managed to 'forget' to properly vet the Kazama girl and make her sign the required confidentiality agreement. If he hadn't ready be ignited following mandatory protocol, Kazuya would have personally seen to it he suffered a fate worse than being set aflame. This whole thing was a headache and he hadn't even dealt with PR yet.

"I don't want your money." Asuka snapped at him. Spitfire. He liked that. He didn't want to kill this one. He didn't want to kill her at all.

"I respect that. I would like you to remain at this company.-"

"And to do that would require me to shut up and just live with the things I've seen?" Asuka interrupted again. Kazuya smirked, he hoped she would make that point.

"As I've said before, Miss Kazama, little hiccups like this have happened before. The question is: Have you heard about any of them?" Kazuya was met with silence, as he expected. He got a sadist joy in entangling people into his company. The reality of the situation was once again sinking in on her.

"No." She stated.

"Don't honestly think you're the only person to walk in here with that stubborn outlier mindset. You're not. However, you can be the person to walk out of here. Alive." Kazuya gave her a moment to let his words sink in. He pulled out her file and opened it to a marked page. "Although, if you were to never walk out of her again, would anyone notice?"

"People would miss me if I disappeared..." Asuka insisted

"Oh really? What people? Not notable friends, mother died during childhood and a father you are completely estranged from. So tell, who would miss you?" Kazuya was met with a clenched jaw and twitching eye. He allowed himself a small smirk as he reclined in his chair.

"Who are you?" Asuka demanded as she unconsciously rubbed the left side of her head

"Ask a little nicer, little girl." Kazuya had then made up his mind that the Kazama girl was not to die. That attitude definitely needed correction but he would not kill her. Not at all. "Don't look like that. It's not that bad."

"Damned if do. Dead if I don't." Asuka muttered.

"Exactly. But look at it this way: I don't want you dead. I am offering you the best opportunity you will ever get in your life: This. This multi-billion dollar company that defies all odds and defines all physics. You've interned here for a while now. You should know better than anyone that it's no cubicle job. Thousands upon thousands of patents are churned out of this company every year. Four Noble Prize winners within the last ten years. Who knows? Maybe the next one could be you..." Kazuya trailed off, giving the young girl a casual look. This brought him back to the days when he worked under his father in the marketing department. Most that knew Kazuya would be disturbingly surprised at how persuasive he was.

"I don't want to be an engineer. That would be a cubicle job for me." Asuka said. Kazuya's smirk grew wider. She was relenting.

"I'm aware. We keep track of the courses you take when we sponsor interns. There's a software engineer job with your name on it." Kazuya watched as Asuka perked up a little bit.

"Really?"

"In one of our nicer facilities in Kyoto. You'll still be an intern; however, your position would definitely be more hands on."

"I am not sure that I trust this."

"You're smart, that's why we want you." Kazuya said. "One condition."

"Not surprised." Asuka sarcastically remarked.

"With hostage situations like this, it is company policy, unwritten policy, to compensate victims. If not monetarily, at least let us give you a vacation. In every report I've read, your co-workers talk about how hard-working you are."

"A vacation?"

"I know a retreat in Nepal that is good for people how have suffered from traumatic incidents. Also, anxiety." Kazuya smirked again as Asuka glared at him.

"I have to go?

"Company policy. I'll send my best to collect you tomorrow."  
"Why so soon?"

"It's interesting how there isn't so much as a scratch on you." Kazuya mused out loud.

"What?"

"It was nice to meet you, Miss Kazama." Kazuya said as he stood. The girl stood with him and had her hand roughly shaken.

"It was nice to meet you to, Mr..."

"It was nice meeting you, Miss Kazama." He said in a slightly harsher tone. As the girl left the same way that she came and Kazuya prepared to bring Bruce and Anna from the back room, a voice seeped into the very depths of his soul.

It was not Devil.

It was unfamiliar and very much not his.

Interesting.

* * *

"You mean to tell me that our Commander-in-Chief just suddenly takes a vacation and leaves you in charge?"

"That's not what I mean to say, that's what I _am_ saying." An irritated Nina Williams answered.

"Jin Kazama, the man that's about as fun as filing your taxes, took a vacation. The most hated man on the planet took a vacation. Without his overpaid bodyguards. And did not tell the highest ranking officer where he was going. Or what he wanted done. Or, more importantly, where the fuck he sent thirty percent of my men?" Lars Alexandersson continued to press. Nina could count on one hand the amount of times the easy-going officer looked so pissed. And to openly speak ill of Jin...

"Language."

"Nina, I know you've heard the rumors."  
"Gossiping is very unbecoming of a Grand Commander, isn't it Falcon?"

"I know you've heard the rumors" Lars persisted. Nina couldn't even bother denying. Jin's growing aggression towards the rest of the world without any outright given purpose, along with G-Corp's undermining hiring tactics had cause a decline in the amount of enlisting forces in the Tekken Force. Rumor had it that some were even deserting. Jin did his absolute best to suppress the whispers, and for the most part it worked, but it had to be mentioned in quiet rooms with only the highest-ranking officials.

"How bad is it?"

"I haven't had any within my own personal legion, nor have any of my own commanders reported any to me for the lower levers, but many Hawk commanders are reporting unrest within their legions. I'm sure there have been actual desertions, I just don't have all the numbers yet." Lars stated. That was worrying, Hawk legions made up the second-strongest but largest division in the Tekken Force. A mass amount of desertions there would cause irreparable damage. Nina's own Owl division suffered great unrest, but that was to be expected. Her Owls were the weakest recruits to the Tekken army and were meant to be moving targets and decoys during a missions. An Owl did not live long and the absurdly suffocating contract Jin roped his mercenaries cause great discontent in within the legion.

"And the Hawk Grand Commander?"

"I have not seen hide or tail of Gordo in weeks, I have no idea where he is. I am doing the best I can to hold everything together, Nina, I am. But it's hard to do that when half of our Grand Commanders just up and leave and refuse to tell me where the hell they went. " Nina furrowed her brow at that. Lars was usually one of the first people to know about these things

"Jin didn't debrief you on the Middle East siege?' Nina inquired. It wasn't like Jin to leave things so unorganized. The widening in Lars's eyes answered her question.

"What siege?" Lars said between grinding teeth.

"I'll brief you on that later, then"

"Jin sent a large sector of my men to the Middle East in a siege I didn't know about. "

"I'll brief you on that later. And I am not overpaid" Nina said

* * *

Asuka would never forget the look on Sukotochi's face when she walked out his office unmarred. Without saying a word to him, she left the room, bumping into a cute western girl with braids. Her heart dropped.

Asuka couldn't explain it, but she just knew the woman's fate would be worse than hers.


	7. Hesistant Hero

**In case you guys didn't see it, please check out chapter 6 again as it has been reuploaded. Turns out I accidently upload chapter 3 again instead of chapter 6. All take out the time to laugh at me for my stupidity, I don't mind :)**

* * *

"Some old bullshit." Lars muttered. The agitated man ran his fingers through his abnormal hair and lowered his elbows to the conference table. To see a chief commander like that was unheard of.

"Language." Nina chided

"I don't know how much more of this I can take. Complete and utter bullshit..." Lars muttered in his native tongue. Nina knew quite a few languages, but Swedish definitely wasn't one.

"That is not what I meant"

"I'm supposed to be the top commander around here!" Lars suddenly slammed his hand on the granite conference table, cracking it greatly. "When Jin is too busy, which he is more than he isn't, I am the one that leads his force. When the Hawks come to me because Eddy is the most incompetent man here, I do my best to guide them. When your legion full of basket cases are ready to jump of the building once they've realized that they essentially signed their death warrant, I try to make things better for them. I have sacrificed too much for this god damn company to get this much disrespect." Lars snapped before muttering again in Swedish.

"It's not that Jin doesn't appreciate you..." Nina started, wondering why she felt the need to console Lars.

"He has been meeting privately with strategists without me, rounds up a significant portion of my men, without me having a say in who gets chosen, sends them to the fucking Middle East to complete some fucking secret mission that no one chosen to fill me in on for some fucking reason. And then he up and disappears."

"Are you done whining?" Nina asked with a raised eyebrow. While she somewhat understood where Lars was coming from, this was a job. Nothing more, nothing less. To get angry and throw tantrums over skirmishes like this was utterly disgraceful. Especially from a man of Lars' age.

However old he was, anyway. There was so much about Lars Alexanderson that Jin was never able to properly vet. Nina was extremely reluctant and very vocal about her reservations of hiring the young-possibly—man. Jin was adamant that he serve under him for reasons still didn't know. Yes, Lars had an impressive resume, but it wasn't like the Mishima heir to have blind faith in anything, much less anyone.

Lars lifted his head up from the conference table and looked at Nina. His eyes were the deadest and most defeated she had ever seen on a man that was looking down the barrel of her gun. There was something else bothering the Swede, she just couldn't place it. A nagging sensation began echoing inside of her, reminding her of the conversation she had with Lars just hours before. Surely Lars wasn't stupid?

Nina decided that she couldn't be too sure. And a threat this large needs her immediate attention

Jin would definitely need to hear of this.

* * *

It was the gentle rhythmic five-tap knock on the door the brought Anna out of near slumber. Anna had resorted to counting the ceiling tiles while waiting for Kazuya to finish his impromptu to meeting. If it wasn't for the fact that both were specifically asked to stay, Anna would have headed out via the secret elevator in the back of the secret room. Bruce actually did manage to fall asleep and the knocks did nothing to rouse him. It was only after Anna 'gently' nudged him with her foot did he stir. She supposed being woken up at three in the morning to assemble a crash team, only to spend hours mulling over the bureaucracy and fine prints would wear out any normal person. Anna herself felt fine, she couldn't necessarily call herself normal anymore. She did not sympathize with the tired. Anna had spent too much of her life sleeping to do that. As the two sat at the desk, Bruce tossed a stray file onto Kazuya's desk.

"We have a problem." Bruce started, stifling a yawn, before Kazuya raised a hand to silence him.

"We can get to that in a moment. We're about to have a visitor."

"When?" Anna asked

"In about an hour, after Sukotochi finishes talking to her."

"Her?" Bruce questioned.

"The traitor that tried to bring the company down by leaking files on the Roxnal data. I'll need you to detain her, Bruce." Kazuya ordered. Bruce nodded his affirmation before Kazuya turned to Anna.

"I have an assignment for you. "

"It's about time. I could hardly believe it when you decided to waste my abundant talents on something as tedious as breaking a hostage crisis. What's the assignment?"

"The girl that just left here-" Kazuya started

"You want me to kill her?" Anna questioned. Kazuya couldn't help but notice she had been a lot more eager to engage in combat missions lately. While he appreciated her willingness, it was slightly disturbing. Anna Williams was an extremely complex character, he knew that for a fact, but not necessarily one to relish in the dirtier parts of her work.

"No, I need you to follow her and watch her. I would prefer it if you didn't kill anyone unless you had to." Anna furrowed her brow at that.

"You want me to follow this girl? Why? Who is she?"

"She is the intern from the hostage crisis. We came to a tentative agreement on her not speaking on the hostage situation but I can't throw my trust behind her words alone."

"Why not just kill her?" Bruce asked.

"She represents a valuable asset to this company. Near genius level intelligence." Kazuya said as he tossed to Anna. She skimmed it, never looking impressed until she reached a certain point.

"A fighter. Interesting." There was something else Anna wanted to speak on that was painfully clear to Kazuya, but he could tell she knew not to bring it up now.

"Tomorrow, you will escort her Kathmandu."

"That is in the middle of absolutely-nowhere-Nepal."

"Exactly. I'll make the arrangements tonight and you will be back here at exactly 5:30 tomorrow morning. You too" Kazuya said as he turned back to Bruce. However, before the man could say anything, Anna cut him off before Bruce could get out as much as sound

"You want me to spend a month in the middle of nowhere, just to watch this child."

"I didn't say that was all you're doing. As I've said, I expect both of you back here tomorrow morning."

"These little girls must really be kicking your ass if you need us both to handle them." Bruce remarked

"That's not why I'm sending _you_ to Nepal. Now what was it that you wanted to tell me." Kazuya started. Bruce looked confused as to what Kazuya was talking about, so he gestured to the file Bruce had left on his desk.

"Right. There was something off with the crisis. The militants said that they were going to execute someone for every hour that the Roxnal data wasn't given to them."

"Right."

"You gave me the order 5:03, approximately three minutes after the fifth hostage was to be executed. I deployed my crash team and they arrived on grounds at 5:45. Potential sixth victim was rescued at exactly 5:53. The militants were captured seconds afterwards. Kazuya, you specifically said one execution every hour, on the hour. We stopped them before they were going to execute the sixth hostage at the sixth hour."

"Where are you going with this, Bruce?" Anna asked. Bruce ignored her.

"Kazuya, we only found four bodies."

* * *

"Right this way, sir."

Jin Kazama wordlessly followed his guide through the massive wooded area to his sparse lodging. While he was able to buy out most of the other visitors, save for a small few, he didn't want to take his chances in the exposing himself open. He couldn't help it at this point. It had been engrained into very depths of the remains of his soul. He eyed the nature around him with seemingly little interest in it. The guide hastily talking faster in an effort to impress the world's most powerful man with the extensive history surrounding the meditation grounds. Jin toned him out like a business meeting; he couldn't care less. He would habitually glance around to assure himself that his security force was properly setting themselves up. Bullets did nothing to stop him, but that didn't mean he enjoyed being shot at.

He could hear the wind rustling the leaves. It spoke to him like barely heard whispers of a forgotten friend. He had never braced a forest since he had left Yakushima for the last time. As the whistle of the wind drowned out the white noise of the guide, Jin turned his attention to the pond. In the circular area if the grounds, the lake served as the heart of it in the very center. Trees were saturated everywhere except a five-foot area around the lake. As Jin mindlessly followed the guide onto the dilapidated-looking bridge across, tuning out his boastful speech on the longevity and endurance of the bridge, he turned his attention the water. The nearly setting sun, along with the dark sapphire tones of the water, made him unable to see his reflection. There was just enough light out to see it refracted in the caustics. The whole thing was reminding him of his childhood. He couldn't help but wonder if his mother would have liked it here.

No. She would not have. She would have chided him on needing help finding his inner peace. She would have scolded him on many, many things. And Jin would have loved every second of it. He regrets the days when he wished she would disappear. It crossed his mind too many times if this was the most twisted version of karma.

He didn't deserve her, and so he lost her.

"Sir" The guide nervously called out. Jin hadn't realized he had paused on the bridge. He ignored the concerned look on the guide's face.

"Take me to my lodgings." The most powerful man on earth ordered as he moved on.

* * *

Lars Alexanderson rubbed his temples as he leaned against the elevator that was slowly taking him down to the sublevels with the Mishima Zaibatsu. He felt a migraine coming on, which was slowly becoming a common occurrence.

The elevator chimed as the doors slowly opened, allowing a slightly shorter, dark-haired young man to join him.

"Well?" Tougou asked, although Lars could tell he already knew what happened. Lars wondered is that made him overly optimistic or just a plain fool.

"You were right... But I need time." Lars said, staring at the closing elevator doors.

"We don't have a lot of time." Tougou started, a quick glance from Lars immediately shut him down. Lars glance at a corner on elevator and focused on it. Pretty soon, Tougou was following his gaze but not understanding what his chief officer was looking at. Lars glance at him again, blue eyes both grimacing and amused.

"Walls have ears, Tougou. You'd be good to remember that."

* * *

 **Thank you to Princess Spara for your extremely sweet review**


	8. Breather

Jin was tired. He came to this retreat to rest and he felt more worn-down than he had back at the Zaibatsu. He thrashed around all night. Nothing made sense. His skin was boiling. It was ice-cold. He was dying. That he knew. Maybe. He couldn't be sure of anything anymore. All he knew was that those voices were far too loud in his head. Too many people were speaking in his head. Devil wanted him to leave. The Unknown Voice wanted to leave. Every time Jin tried to embrace the silence, the voice boomed in his head, demanding that he get back to work. It wasn't his inner workaholic. It wasn't even Devil.

It was something else.

Something far more sinister

Something that invited itself into his head not long after assumed control of the Zaibatsu. No matter what Jin studied, what monk or elder he talked to, he could not narrow down the insufferable voice in his head. Its origins were unknown, its identity was unknown. All Jin knew that it wanted was destruction. It called for hatred.

So much more hatred than Jin could ever even conceive of.

Jin had to suppress the urge to scream. This was not like the times when the Devil would take over him to do God knows what. He felt like was being torn apart from the inside. Without his knowledge and without his control, Jin forced himself to a sitting position and slowly stood up. His movements were mechanical, like a rusty robot with absolutely no control of himself. His blood began to flow the other way, hot like magma. His body was being hijacked while he was still aware. Every cell in his body hurt.

And just like that, it ended. The noise was quieted, the pain fled.

And Jin collapsed on the floor, passing out to blissful silence.

* * *

"What's could possibly be this important?"

"For once, don't argue with me. Do as your told, Williams." Kazuya snapped through the phone.

"You said that I was going to have another assignment."

"I know what I said. Things changed last minute." Kazuya said, trying to rein in the assassin before she went on another rant. He was not in the mood to tolerate Anna's bullshit. His head had been pulsing ever since his meeting with the Kazama girl.

"Oh? And what change was that?"

"The plan was for you to interrogate, as you liked to call her, 'Nature Girl', but-"

"But you pussed out and didn't let Bruce detain her." Anna cut him off

"We'll keep an eye on her. See where she is sending her information and kill it at its source." Kazuya explained. He would ignore the 'pussed out' comment for now.

"Which is exactly what you should be sending me to do. Not sit around for a month watching Girl Wonder do absolutely nothing." Anna was borderline whining at this point.

"Which is exactly what you will be doing as soon as you come back. I only employ the smartest, Williams. The Chang girl would know we have people watching her."

"Why can't Bruce do this mundane crap?" Anna was actually whining at this point. If Kazuya could actually strangle her, he would.

"His services became necessary last minute."

"I really hate you for this, Mishima." Anna said. It was not common for her to refer to him with his last name, no matter how many times Kazuya demanded she do so. No matter, the sarcasm was not

"Duly noted, Williams." Kazuya said before hanging up. He picked up a single file laying on his desk, devoting his attention to that as he pushed out an annoying whisper poking around in his head. He had more pressing issues to deal with.

* * *

Across the average hotel Anna Williams had been put up in, a man was unpacking his luggage in the dismal hotel room of his own. The designer red luggage greatly contrasted the dingy tan He said a small prayer and hoped he would bring any creepy-crawlers back as he pulled out a high-powered custom-made sniper rifle, checking to make sure the suppressor was fully operational. The last thing that he needed was to attract the attention of the other occupants. If he failed, he was already a dead man, no use in making the situation worse.

* * *

Asuka trudged through the retreat, exhausted and barely making it to her hut. The insultingly-early drive to the airport with the world's most sexually aggressive woman (Anya, Was it?) took a lot out of her. And to add on to it, the crazy lady accompanied her onto the plane and spent the whole time slumped over her, whispering creepy things in her ear. Asuka could honestly say that she didn't feel safe sleeping with the Lady Curves lurking around. Not an ounce of sleep on the plane. Not an ounce of sleep in the car to the retreat as, of course, the sexual predator that was her escort, was sitting next to her the whole time with her hand stroking Asuka's upper thigh. Asuka could tell that the woman was a Westerner. Maybe it was a weird tradition there. She had seen the woman somewhere before, she just couldn't place where Asuka approached the lodgings that was supposed to be hers. It looked like a glorified tent. She had to briefly wonder if this was Kazuya's attempt to get her to either kill herself or die from exposure. She was a city girl to the very core of her being and not meant to be in ridiculous places such as this. Damn it, she couldn't even start a fire without a Bunsen burner.

A shiver ran up her spine. Asuka could not understand why she was freezing. The weather was roaring hot and she had been sweating out every ounce of liquid in her body during the car ride. Now, every step that she took, she risked freezing to death. A dizziness surrounded her and dark hues danced around her spectrum of vision. Asuka could not go on, that she knew. Once she found a wooden, unstable-looking bench, she quickly collapsed on it, shivering all the way.

* * *

"Ma'am, I believe there is something you need to see." Nina Williams was broken out of her thoughts by the arrival of her own personal assistant/substitute bodyguard. With Jin away, she didn't have time to manage the company and keep a watchful eye out for the long list of people she had wronged over the years.

"What is it?" Nina inquired, her eyes never leaving the window in front of her. How funny. She had only been managing the Zaibatsu for three days and she had already picked up Jin's affinity for brooding.

"I have just received word for the retreat. Apparently, there was a guest who made a reservation last minute."

"Who?" Was all Nina had to say.

"The reservation was made by G-Corp. I've already utilized the satellites we have had positioned over the resort. The guest has been identified and I have taken the liberty of vetting her."

"Her?" Nina tensed. Was it Anna? Was Kazuya that sharp, that bold as to figure out their plans already and deploy her sister?

"Yes, ma'am, her. I will leave the file her and take my leave. There are other things I must attend to." Nina heard the sound of the file being placed on the desk, Jin's desk, in the otherwise quiet room. Only cnce the door clicked shut, marking the departure of her assistant, did she turn around and approached the desk. Nina glanced at the contents of the file for a mere second before closing it and sighing heavily.

Why couldn't things _ever_ go smoothly?


	9. Inconsistent Inconveniences

The whole place smelled of cheap liquor and perfume. Loud, meaningless pop music blared to the point where Lars teeth vibrates. He signed heavily and took another drag to force himself to relax. He hadn't smoke in such a long time, his lungs still burned a little and he stifled a cough.

"Real smooth," His companion taunted. Lars glared at the dark hair man before turning his attentions to the woman approaching him.

Girl was more like it, to say she was eighteen was generous. Looking up and down her scantily clad attire, Lars did his best to hide his cringe. No doubt far too young to working in a place like this. It was obvious she could tell he had money and was drawn to him because of that, somehow outpacing all the other women giving him the eye. She smiled, it somehow had here look all the more younger. Pity flooded through the older man at the predicament the child, because that's what she was, had found herself even. However, he refused to let it show, hiding his slight wince whenever she wrapped her arms around his neck and giggled in his ear. Lars's arms slid around her waist and pulled her closer.

"How about we go somewhere more... private?" Lars whispered, pulling out his wallet whenever the girl hesitated. He could feel her heave a sigh before she pulled out of his embrace to bring him to a room in the back. Her body radiated fear and dread and Lars could feel it.

The dingy room was small. The dim lighting highlighted the chipping of the tan paint on the walls. The only contents of the room where a red, metallic pole, a splintered wooden chair and an old beaten up red sofa. Lars stood in the middle of the room to gauge his surroundings as the young girl proceeded to close the door, only for it to swing open as she tried to lock it, the force sending her into Lars's arms as a handsome, dark-haired man strolled in causally.

"Mind if I join in," The man stated, it wasn't a question, as he closed the door and locked it. The girl was trembling in Lars's arms as she looked up at him to find any form of protection or resistance to the newcomer. She found neither of those things.

"Of course not. You don't mind, do you?" Lars asked, again the girl could tell it wasn't a question. The girl tensed up heavily as the dark-haired man approached her and her blonde 'companion'. Confusion almost replaced her anxiety as the dark-haired man reached into his pocket and pulled out a wallet. He raised it in front of her face before pulling out every single bill in the wallet. There weren't that many, but the ones that were in there were undoubtedly worth more than a month's pay here. She tensed again, wondering what they were going to do to her that could be worth so much money. The blonde man loosened his grip on her arms as the dark-haired man put the money in her hand. He leaned into her ear, so close that she could practically feel his stubble.

"Find a new job, kid." He whispered. He moved from in front of her and nodded towards the door. Confused but not stupid enough to pass up an out, the girl hightailed it out of there, leaving the two men in the room alone.

"Poor girl," Lars said, "We definitely scared her shitless."

"Eh," Tougou shrugged it off as Lars walked to the door to close and lock it again. "Sometimes scaring the youth saves the youth. That girl wasn't fooling anybody, way too young to be working in a strip club."

"Very creative idea, Tougou, I'd have never thought of this." Lars said as he took the splintery chair and sat on it, his companion sitting opposite of him on the red sofa.

"Jin's a raging asexual with a stick up his ass. This is probably one of the few places he doesn't have people watching. It's safe. Plus this place notorious for being a child sex trafficking ring. I thought I'd help one of my buddies on the force by getting some evidence." Lars relaxed minutely at that. He sighed heavily and pulled out another cigarette, trying his best to ignore Tougou's scoffing.

"We're already up a shit creek without a paddle, no need to add lung cancer to the equation." Lars sighed again in silent agreement before putting the offending object away.

"We need to come up with a plan." Lars said.

"We need to figure how to not get caught." Tougou countered. "People are going to catch on the is real quick. Jin's caught Ravens practically crawling over Tokyo."

"Ravens are just a myth. A Zaibatsu legend they tell knew recruits the keep them from acting up" Lars countered and, to the best of his knowledge, he was right. Word had it that when Kazama took over the Crow branch of the army and began reforming it, he had the first generation under him trained in the art of espionage and interrogation. Supposedly, the first gen of about a thousand had been stationed all over the world with a heavy concentration in Tokyo. He'd even heard Eddie mention on time that he bet Jin had planted moles in all of their divisions. Lars took that with a grain of salt.

"Would you really put it past Jin?" Tougou asked. He didn't get an answer back and, frankly, that was an answer in and of itself.

"What do you expect us to do? Join the resistance and get dragged into that whole mess?" A small league of insurgents had started bud almost immediately after Jin started Operation Clockwork. It was microscopic, in desperate need of funds, and generally just a rag tag mess. It was also being watched heavily by Jin. Lars had heard rumors that an ex-competitor from Iron Fist had been running it.

"I was think more along the lines of us starting our own..."

* * *

Asuka shivered as she sat up from the hard, rickety bench. It was night and not a single star was in the deep black sky. At some point, someone must have taken pity on her shivering and left her a heavy hoodie. Asuka appreciated it greatly and made a note to fold it and have it returned to the front desk first thing in the morning. She wasn't far from the lake, she could see just ahead of her.

Along with a figure dancing in the moonlight.

Stunned, Asuka rubbed her eyes, yet the figure did not dissipate. Approximately thirty feet from her, near the lake, was a man dancing. What kind of quack-farm did she land in? Morbid curiosity had gotten the best of her and she slowly approached him, trying to be as silent as possible considering this man might actually be crazy.

As she got closer, she slowly realized that the man wasn't dancing, he was doing katas.

Katas alarmingly similar to hers.

Questions raced through Asuka's head as to who this man was, what he was doing here and why in the hell he knew her style. She had stopped moving and stared at the anomaly before her, trying to come up with a logical solution. Dread had overcome her, the ominous feeling that she wasn't supposed be here, so much like she had felt at G-Corp's headquarters.

And most alarmingly, déjà vu.

"Are you just going to keep staring at me?" Asuka was abruptly snapped out her thoughts when the figure spoke to her, never straying from his movements in the slightest. His voice drove a sliver up Asuka's spine. She had heard it before. She just didn't know where, or what it meant

Panic had completely replaced the dread.

"Who are you?" She asked, trying her hardest to hide the tremor in her voice.

"I am supposed to be here. You are not" The figure said, punting her question to the side. Asuka was confused

"What are you talking about?" She pressed further.

"You are disturbing me. Leave." The figure ordered. Asuka listened. Backing away slowly, her eyes never leaving the man, she hardly notices the jacket drop from her shoulders before she steps over it and sprints away.

* * *

 _"This has to be the stupidest thing you've ever made me do."_ Bruce snapped into the phone.

"Irvin." Kazuya replied in a warning tone. _Back in his day, subordinates weren't anywhere near as mouthy._ He thought. _Wait a minute, yes, they were._

 _"Diverting me friggin Ice Town, Russia, inhabited by no one, with no proper equipment, no fucking Russian winter clothes and no leads. I mean, don't you have people for this?"_

 _"_ Yes." Kazuya stated. "You"

" _Oh hell no, not after the Amazon Crisis."_ Bruce clapped back. Kazuya sighed, he had hoped the Irvin would put that whole event behind him, given that it had happened thirty years ago. " _Your asshat son is tearing through the Middle East and instead of sending your_ Head Commander _to deal with it, your brilliant ass decides to send me on wild goose chase for some stupid kid that may well be dead by now. Fan-motherfucking-tastic."_ Bruce went off into the com-link. Kazuya waited patiently for Irvin to quit his moaning and wondered why he allowed Williams and Irvin to talk to him in such a way. Then he remembered that he didn't. He just put up with it because killing them is notoriously difficult and not worth the hassle. He also had to begrudgingly admit that it would be difficult to find people as seasoned and competent as they were.

"Jin is after him. That means that we have to get to him first. The M cell is crucial to the Roxnal data.

"What about Heihachi? If anyone knows where he could be, it would be him." Bruce stated. He wasn't wrong. Kazuya knew that Heihachi must have kept track of the test subject, but that wasn't a smart tree to bark up. While Kazuya knew where he was, and he was sure Jin did too, and he knew Heihachi was building up a cult to challenge him, and Jin, with. History had proven that the man was untorturable, which Kazuya knew where Irvin's line of thinking was going. And even then, if Heihachi spilled, which he wouldn't, getting him involved would be a migraine-inducing mess. Fun, but still a mess.

"Just do as you're told." Kazuya ordered

* * *

"Why me?" Lars asked.

"Because I have to do something." Nina said, decidedly ignoring the incredulous look Lars's face. "And you were the only decent option."

"I have never studied business, let alone know how to run one." Lars insisted

"Neither did most people who ran this company. A man-demon came back from the dead to run the place Hell, we hand it out to any who wins the tournament. It really doesn't take a lot to run this place." Nina deadpanned

"How do we even have any investors, or stability?" Lars inquired.

"No idea. I should be back within a week. If you need anything, don't call me." Nina said as she walked out the door, ignoring Lars sounds of protest.

Whenever Lars was sure Nina was completely out of range, he pulled out his phone.

"It's me, I think I've figured out a better way."

* * *

 **Yay!**

 **After nine chapters, we have achieved**

 **A very brief meeting.**

 **I've been deliberately putting of having Jin and Asuka meet because Jin is a very difficult character to write. When I was starting out, I though it was because Jin was all stoic and complex and all. Turns out I was wrong**

 **Jin just doesn't have a personality, but that's whatever**

 **Regardless, I'm going to work my ass of to make sure the next chapter is longer, comes quicker, and is mainly focused on Jin and Asuka.**

 **PLEASE REVIEW.**

 **It inspires me to write faster and it gives me an idea of how you guys are receiving it. It doesn't have be an essay and it doesn't necessarily have to be positive.**


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